


All Across Manhattan

by karanguni



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:cleflink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Giant great big thanks to Lix/saneasalice for the technical beta and sara/saraaah for the canon beta; without you my brains would have evaporated and this fic would have gone with it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	All Across Manhattan

**Author's Note:**

> Giant great big thanks to Lix/saneasalice for the technical beta and sara/saraaah for the canon beta; without you my brains would have evaporated and this fic would have gone with it.

**Sometime - any time - after 1931**

Claire comes home to a city of jazz. It's not that they've got the best players here, or even the best scene - just that the city lives and breathes like a piece set to music. Twanging, swaying, swerving, calling and replying; noise swirling everywhere and all the time in rhythmic chaos that only its own people understand. One of the reasons why he joined the circus was New York, New York: the big top was the only thing as sleepless, frenetic, exciting. Claire comes home, and struts back out onto the streets he still knows by name and sight and sound. People swarm past him like he's barely there. Stretching, he glances up past the skyscrapers yawning up into the blueness and grins. New York makes him think, sometimes, that maybe the world doesn't revolve around him after all. It's the city's way of saying hello.

Claire exhales, watching his breath turn to frost on the air. December on the East Coast is always too cold for his liking - there's not much you can do sitting around indoors when the clock strikes five in the afternoon and the world's pitch-black outside. But he's come home anyway, for the sake of family and _auld lang syne._

Christmas in Manhattan; what a wonderful world.

Claire doesn't have any bags with him. His presents aren't given like that.

 **1.**

The first place Claire visits is the Alveare, because he's cold and hungry, and neither Keith nor Berga nor Luck are any good with food. The place is buzzing; waiters on double shifts even with extra seasonal staff, diners lingering at the door to the cloak room, hostesses ushering everyone to and fro amidst the glow of lights strung up everywhere. Claire tucks his hands into his pockets and walks past the harrowed maître d' busily checking reservations. No one really notices him slipping his way upstairs to where the Martillo family dines privately because he doesn't want anyone to. Claire pops up the flight of stairs and waves when he sees a table full of capos and officers noisily tearing into a platter of turkey with all the trimmings (and bottles of wine necessary to go with). He recognises a few of them - all hardened members of the mob, the one on the far right probably Ricky "Fingers" (renowned collector of used appendages) and the guy beside him Sonny Graves ("Graves bein' plural because you're gonna need more than one for all the pieces you'll be in"). Real mafia men, none of them anything at all like his brothers.

'Hi. I'm looking for Firo,' Claire says brightly, walking up. 'Anyone know where he is right now?'

The room falls absolutely silent. Its occupants stare. No one moves, but there's the indelible impression there that, if they chose to, there'd be the sound of a lot of unfriendly metal being moved about. Someone puts down his fork; it clatters noisily onto a plate.

Claire blinks at them. 'He's about this short,' he explains, holding one hand about five feet off the ground. 'Brown hair?' he offers, just in case the description isn't specific enough. 'Is he out?'

There's a cough from somewhere, but no reply. People give each other looks - _what the hell are we supposed to do now?_ Claire doesn't have anything in his hands, but he's wearing a black trench that could hide any number of potential weapons, and nobody strolls into a mafia speakeasy just like _that_ \--

'Is everything all right out here?' someone from the next room calls. 'It's awfully qui --' Firo walks in. His eyes widen when he spots the source of the silence. '-- et in here,' he finishes his sentence, and breaks into a grin. 'Claire!'

'That's Firo,' Claire tells the rest of the room, helpfully, before he walks over and claps his friend on the arm.

'You're back!' Firo laughs, tugging Claire away and back downstairs. 'You've missed us for so many years that Berga almost wanted to tell Luck not to call you this time. What have you been up to?'

His question is ignored. Claire looks at Firo intently, not responding.

'Claire?'

'I realise something. You really never _are_ going to hit your growth spurt, are you?'

' _Claire._ '

 **2.**

Firo, in the spirit of generosity against all hardship, feeds Claire food that isn't alcohol or peanuts (the sum total of what's likely to be available at the Gandor jazz bar) before driving him to see his brothers. He ignores Claire when Claire asks if he can see over the steering wheel, and drops Claire off on the sidewalk with instructions to visit again soon. Claire waves him off before heading inside.

It doesn't surprise him at all to find Berga playing cards with his subordinates - Berga's always been one of the guys, and they'll always have a game with him for that reason, even if Berga tends to break tables as regularly as he loses (which is very often).

'Claire?' his brother asks when he walks in through the door, as though he can't believe his eyes. 'Claire! You son of a bitch - you think you can just walk in here after leaving home for so long?' And then Claire ducks to the right, because Berga will try to throw a punch - which he does - and then Berga blocks his uppercut and they end up breaking more than just the table - they lose two chairs and a beer bottle to the fight, and at the end of it Berga is unscathed but drenched through.

'Welcome home,' Berga growls, all things forgiven between them, and he hugs Claire squarely to spread both his love and the drip of lager beer. 'Come on upstairs. We kept your old room for you.'

Claire doesn't have anything to unpack, but it turns out that Berga wasn't kidding when he said they'd kept his room - there are shirts and pants and a coat in his closet that fit the size he was five years ago. They still fit for the most part, except that Claire is slightly broader in the shoulders and thinner in the leg. He doesn't suppose that his brothers thought about it: immortality must make shopping convenient. Claire slips into the shirts without issue, but the pants won't stay right without suspenders, and Claire's never been a keen on those.

'Let's go out,' he tells Berga when they're both presentable again. 'I can get some clothes, and you can tell me what you want for Christmas.'

'Younger brothers shouldn't be buying their elder siblings anything,' Berga growls.

'Fine,' Claire shrugs, smiling a very particular smile. 'Then we'll buy something for Luck.'

Berga's smile is astonishingly close to Claire's own. 'Aaaah.'

 **3.**

Together, Claire and Berga purchase for the youngest Gandor an extra-large calendar full of pin-ups featuring curvy women and summer swimwear; the shop they buy it from packages it in a brown paper bag, which they decide to keep as a very appropriate sort of wrapping. They buy him a card and spend some time at a tea shop scribbling obscene seasonal greetings on the inside. Berga has to leave after that to manage a part of the territory; it's perfect timing so that Claire can go back and search for a more personal gift for Luck.

He only gets to see Luck at twelve in the morning that night. His little brother works long hours now, and he comes home all dressed up like a real jaded and experienced mafioso, except that Claire can see that Luck's still easily shocked by people invading his privacy.

'What -' Luck starts when he walks in through his door to find Claire there waiting, cat-eyed in the darkness, on his bed. 'You never care to knock,' Luck sighs, dropping his guard and shutting the door behind him. His lock hasn't been tampered with: after all these years, it'd be insulting to even consider Claire being unable to get into any room he has a mind to invade.

'How was your trip?' Luck asks, stripping out of his coat. Claire's smile turns deeper when he hears the real warmth in Luck's voice. He loves Chane deeply and enjoys every moment with her, but there are elements of home that she can never hope to equal.

'Good,' Claire tells Luck, before reaching down and pulling something out from underneath Luck's bed. 'Merry Christmas,' he says, passing it over.

Luck accepts the unwrapped present. It's a knife, beautifully balanced with an ivory handle and a gleaming blade.

'You're not afraid of them now, are you?' Claire asks, making to stand. Luck watches him, the knife held loosely in his hand: Claire unfolds himself like the acrobat he is, limbs efficient and moves all measured and full of understated power. Claire comes over, and puts his hand on Luck's hand, wrapping both their fingers around the hilt of the knife. 'Remember when you were scared of everything?'

'Death was always something to be afraid of,' Luck says, soft in the darkness of a winter's night.

'I hope you're not afraid any longer, little brother,' Claire purrs. 'Want to try an experiment to see?'

'Claire,' Luck says. 'You. This suit is new. I'd rather not have to end up burning it.'

'You're going to have to buy new ones in the future in any case,' Claire reminds him, tightening both their grips on the knife. 'Come on, Luck. Let's find out what it's like to live forever.'

The blade is sharp and true and cuts, the both of them find out, so easily into flesh; as easily, it seems, as Luck's body heals up, and just as neat.

 **4.**

Christmas dinner in the Gandor family has always been a well observed affair - at seven in the evening all are obliged to be present and well dressed. Luck doesn't complain about having to pull out a new set of clothes for the occasion, and Berga beams when he sees that Claire's wearing the new things that were bought for him the day before. The three bothers spend the afternoon browsing the cellars for the perfect wine, and compare the gifts that they've each bought for Keith's wife. Keith comes in later, having been exiled from his home's kitchen by his better half, and the four of them end up passing the time as they always have, by playing poker at their headquarters and competing to see who can get away with cheating the most.

'I'm surprised,' Claire mentions when they're on their third game. 'I understand that you three don't have what it takes to make a move on Christmas day, but I thought that others wouldn't show you the same courtesy. You don't even have men here to guard the front.'

'Maybe some people respect the sanctity of the holiday,' Berga rumbles righteously, and then the front door is slammed open and there is shouting and the spray of a tommy gun going off. It could be what's left of the Runorata madman out for payback, or any one of the numerous families which are jealous of the rising power of the Gandor family - it doesn't matter, either way, since Claire already knows which side will win this fight.

Keith sighs, and puts down his hand.

Luck reaches for his sidearm, and doesn't say anything even though he sees Berga hastily swap over a few of his cards.

Berga, mischief made, cracks his knuckles. 'Good way to work up an appetite.'

Claire thinks that this must be why he loves his family.

Berga storms into the melee without second thought, causing enough of a ruckus that it's an easy job for Luck and Keith to stand at the corners and snipe off the strays. Claire tries to keep it clean for the sake of having less of a mess to clean up afterwards; he dances in and then comes out again, picking and choosing and getting bored because it's too easy to work like this, what with his brothers providing support on all sides and their opponents being disorganised. On a whim, Claire stands still long enough for one of the smarter guys to get a pin on him. The man has his aim focused and his eyes full of hate and fear, so Claire _smiles_ just on principle before he hears the harsh bang of the gun going off.

The bullet never reaches him. Keith is there in front of him, his shoulder piecing itself back together and eyes narrowed and angry. 'Don't play,' Keith mutters, moving away as if he hadn't taken the shot at close range for Claire.

'Yessir,' Claire salutes with a wink, and after that it doesn't take very long at all.

 **5.**

They make it to the dinner table just in time to hear the clock strike seven all across Manhattan.

'To a good year ending,' Claire toasts his family as Keith carves up turkey and Luck pulls out the chair for Katie and Berga breaks plates accidentally while putting them out. 'And the rest of them to come.'

  



End file.
